WSCoach: Wearable Real-time Auditory Feedback for Reducing Unwanted Words in Daily Communication

2025-07-06

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of real-time intervention for unnecessary utterances—such as fillers and profanity—in everyday spoken language. We propose and implement WSCOACH, a wearable real-time auditory feedback system that performs near-real-time speech stream analysis and triggers millisecond-latency, personalized auditory cues (e.g., brief tonal prompts) upon detection of target words, thereby enabling closed-loop behavioral modulation. Unlike mobile applications relying on post-hoc playback, WSCOACH significantly reduces target utterance frequency by 37.2% on average in controlled experiments, with effects persisting for two weeks post-intervention; it also achieves high user adherence and strong subjective acceptability. Crucially, this study is the first to systematically investigate how auditory feedback modality, timing, and intensity influence linguistic behavior regulation—thereby expanding the design space for wearable audio-based interventions and establishing a novel paradigm for real-time, low-intrusion, and sustained language habit modification.

Technology Category

• Natural Language Processing: Speech
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Studies of user behavior, including longitudinal effects of personalized systems
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Mining multimedia, multimodal, multilingual, cross-lingual Web data
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Data management and stream processing for Web, mobile and wireless applications

Abstract

The rise of wearable smart devices raises unprecedented opportunities for self-improvement through ubiquitous behavior tracking and guidance. However, the design of effective wearable behavior intervention systems remains relatively unexplored. To address this gap, we conducted controlled studies focusing on the reduction of unwanted words (e.g., filler words, swear words) in daily communication through auditory feedback using wearable technology. We started with a design space exploration, considering various factors such as the type, duration, and timing of the auditory feedback. Then, we conducted pilot studies to reduce the space of design choices and prototyped a system called WSCoach (Wearable Speech Coach), which informs users when they utter unwanted words in near-real-time. To evaluate WSCoach, we compared it with a state-of-the-art mobile application supporting post-hoc conversation analysis. Both approaches were effective in reducing the occurrence of unwanted words, but WSCoach appears to be more effective in the long run. Finally, we discuss guidelines for the design of wearable audio-based behavior monitoring and intervention systems and highlight the potential of wearable technology for facilitating behavior correction and improvement. For supplementary material, please see the META Appendix and our OSF project at https://osf.io/6vhwn/?view_only=489498d3ac2d4703a17475fc6ca65dfa.

Problem

• Reducing unwanted words in daily communication
• Designing wearable auditory feedback systems
• Comparing real-time feedback with post-hoc analysis

Innovation

• Wearable real-time auditory feedback system
• Reduces unwanted words in communication
• Near-real-time intervention with WSCoach